Review: INTO THE STORM

In the conclusion of Jan de Bont’s Twister the main characters tie each other together with a belt to a pipe in the ground to hold themselves down to survive the winds of the tornado. Spoilers, they do. If you were wondering why there are not more movies where people avoid twisters, this is why. Then there is Steven Quale’s Into the Storm which for most of the film does it all wrong like most other tornado movies and once in a good while does them so well it almost makes all of it worth it.

Into the Storm follows several groups of people; the storm chasers with the most high tech equipment imaginable, a high school student who will finally reveal the interest in his crush, the High School boy’s father and his other son and a couple of ill minded hillbillies. After a few occurrences of run of the mill conflicts the town of Silverton is struck with a humungous twister. More conflicts erupt and so do several more twisters. Some of our characters will live; others will not, it is an ordinary disaster flick.

With so much going on in the film with the storm and inner storms of the characters some will be surprised that the whole film tries to pull off the found footage genre. Most of the students film with their phones, others have actual camcorders and the vehicle of the storm chasers is riddled with cameras to get every angle (for the film’s sake). There is no real reason for this. It could have been a normally shot film. They could have kept some shaky cam shots and just shot it without the “vibe” of this is real life. Everyone in the film at least looks like they are having fun in the movie even though their performances are not full of absolute brilliance, the written dialogue does not help them either.

Into the Storm does not do many things correctly. Though every once in a while something awesome happens. At one point an entire tornado catches on fire, it catches a camera man and we see him twirl up it. There is a childlike creativity that comes out in the script. All of these situations are unlikely, probably impossible yet there are enough moments that wake up your twelve year old self that will make you giddy with excitement.